How to make 2018 your year *for real this time* (FREE goal-getting formula inside!)

[10-min read] 

Greetings loves! Wishing you a peaceful, reflective, focused and fun year-end.

I’m sharing some quick tips based on my 2017 life lessons and notes to self. I write a lot of these when I journal and I believe they’ll also help you create the life you want in 2018. The focus for me next year (and all others) will be #mindbeingwellness as I am working towards total health and more feelings of contentment regardless of the many shitstorms life can bring. This year was definitely about learning big things for me (mostly the hard way – yay, bitch :-/)… butttt the good thing about tough lessons is if you have at least a shred of sense, you learn that shit quick so you don’t have to do it again.

Today’s post is all about that, so without further ado, here are some reminders I wrote to myself and the wider world, as well as a strategy for actually achieving goals and creating the life you want. Read, enjoy, bookmark/Pocket, re-read several times and put them into practice. You can’t go wrong!

#thingstostopdoingin2018

Going it alone. It’s okay to need help and know when to ask for it. It’s not a weakness, it’s a strength. Yes, we all like to achieve and can do anything, but it doesn’t always mean we should or must do everything by ourselves. Sometimes it’s best to share the task, or pass it along to someone who’s better at it to save ourselves the time, energy, stress, frustration and so much more.

Keeping knowledge to yourself. You may think this benefits you, but it does quite the opposite. Each one teach one, at least, many if possible. Think from a place of abundance and not from lack, there’s enough of everything for all of us, everything is not a contest, and healthy competition is the best. It keeps you sharp, growing, and it’s so much better to be part of an empowered, skilled, helpful community with a common goal than it is to burn yourself out trying to be the only one, criticising your competition, and worrying about your perceived ‘haters’ along the way.

Wasting too much time online. The Internet is such an amazing tool! Why not use it to better yourself? Instead of playing games, sending unsolicited dick pics (men, for the love of God, please stop this), gossiping and reading gossip, scrolling your feed 5,000 times, endless cat videos and hours of meme following, cut the idle time in half and use the other half to learn new shit fam. Read a blog post, an article, an e-book, watch an instructional video for something you really want to learn to do on YouTube, sign up for a webinar or free e- challenge or course that can help you land that promotion. Start thinking about how you can use it to make your life better and do it. 

Putting yourself last. This is the worst thing you could ever do, trust me. I know this firsthand. It’s your life, so why shouldn’t your needs come first? It’s about self-nurturing rather than selfishness. Love yourself, wholly, so you can love others. Know yourself so you can better understand your experiences and how to relate to others. Stop lying to yourself so you can be real with others. If you don’t take care of yourself, you can’t be there for the people who matter to you, and this is the case in every facet of your life.

Physically, get rest. Your mind, body and spirit need good sleep. Stop eating bullshit food, or at least reduce your intake. Drink lots of water. It’s mostly what you’re made of. Get some exercise that you enjoy, or it doesn’t make sense, you’ll stop doing it and consistency matters here. Find a creative outlet to help you destress and connect with a different side of yourself and your spirit. Be it giving back, gardening, yoga, meditation, colouring, journalling, taking road trips, dancing to trap music, whatever. Find it and do it, consistently. It really matters to your health and happiness and helps you to stay well in every way.

Entertaining toxicity. Let toxicity go. Walk away from situations, jobs, environments, habits, people and things that are not serving you, that don’t move you forward, foster your growth mindset, encourage you, make you happier or make you feel good in any way. Let go of people who drag you and drain you. Anyone in your circle should be rooting for you and supporting you. Every part of your life should be making you better. If not, do not hold on to it for anything. Not longevity, loyalty, money, family, sex, none of that matters more than you do. It will never be worth it. Choose yourself.

Holding on to negative, hateful, backward views. If 2017 taught us anything, it’s that…

(1) anything done in the dark must come to light

(2) the world is still full of ugly things like racism, sexism, rape and other forms abuse that seem to be going nowhere

(3) people are fed up of this and demanding that things change for good.

It’s great. Be part of the change, don’t perpetuate bullshit when you can help to make the world better. Evaluate yourself constantly and, if found, do away with judgments, bias, bigotry, hatred, discrimination, denial, abusing of power and privilege in your own life, and make sure you speak up against it whenever you encounter it.

Not planning for your future. Evaluate your spending habits, make a budget, start saving, learn about financial management and investing, get health insurance if you don’t have it already, increase your income if you need to, learn something you can use to further your career, join a gym, whatever you can do to start thinking ahead and planning for it is worth it, so start now.

Ignoring your mental health. Total well-being, or, as I call it, #mindbeingwellness is impossible if your mind isn’t right. How to maintain your equilibrium? Glad you asked. By being true to yourself, for starters. Try to live a life you’re proud of, doing things you love, that fulfill you, and spending time with people who are good for you. Again, do away with toxicity in all forms, it makes you sick. Eliminate extreme stress and manage your levels of stress and overwhelm with adequate rest, mindfulness and activities that soothe and recharge you.

Also, it’s very important that if you suspect you have a mental health challenge, you talk to someone. Not sure how to decipher that? keep a journal or see a therapist. If you need it, get them to put you on medication for a while. Do whatever you need to do to be okay, but don’t try to do it alone and don’t just keep it inside. There’s no shame in taking the best care of yourself, and leaving your mental health to chance could prove fatal. Please, forget about the stigma that exists and think about what’s best for you.

Not having fun and/or resisting change. Both are self-explanatory, but I’ll still elaborate a bit. Change is the only certainty we get in life (besides death), so you might as well embrace it, or at the very least, accept that it happens. Things will go awry according to your plans, but they don’t go wrong, your way was just not how it’s supposed to work out. Try to find the silver lining to give you hope to move forward, and, whenever you can, I highly recommend finding or creating the humour in the situation. It’s a useful skill that, many times, will keep you alive. If you still have difficulty, try keeping a gratitude jar, or journal and reading it at the end of each month, then again at the end of the year. You’ll be amazed. Here are some dope throwback journalling prompts you can use to review your year if you’d like to try.

Now for the goal-getting formula *drumroll*

The key is to level it up and move your need/idea from dream to plan by breaking it into phases, setting a timeline, and giving yourself measurable objectives for each one. Then from there, you can break these into quarterly/monthly objectives, weekly objectives and daily tasks. I highly recommend making the final objective something you’ll be excited to reach. E.g.

Here’s an example of an idea/dream

I want to learn how to drive by the end of 2018.

(Good, but add in accountability, take it up a notch to make it great).

Here’s how you turn that into a plan… 

Phases

• Q1, start lessons
• Q2, take driving test
• Q3, get driver’s license
• Q4, book an AirBnB in Portland and drive there with new license for a celebratory chill weekend

Objectives

• Start reading driving book in week 1
• Take and certify new passport photos by week 2
• Apply for learner’s by week 3
• Start calling around for prices on lessons Jan 21
• Get the money together for the first two lessons by January 26th.
• Finish reading driving book by January 30th.
• Take first driving class by February 1st.

Daily tasks

• Get a haircut (for passport pictures)
• Identify and contact a certifying official
• Read 4 pages of driving book
• Figure out how many phone cards to sell by the end of the month (to cover first two driving lessons)
• Advertise phone card business with special rate via WhatsApp

So what do you think? Have you gotten the hang of it now? Even if it takes a few tries, it’s a strategy and principle worth mastering and it feels a lot less overwhelming. Get on it and get moving on those 2018 tings!

I hope you found this useful. If you do, please leave me a comment below and share it with someone you think it could help. All the best for the year ahead…

Love, Light x Blessings,

—Tami

P.S. For mental health, self-care/actualisation and wellness tips, and to get the news of my events, support group and products first, sign up for my e-mails here. Thanks!